ThreeSixFive TrìSiaCòig – A Year in the Highlands and Islands

Tain-based artist Fin Macrae may be half of DUFI, but he also maintains a solo artistic life outwith those graffiti guerillas as a talented photographer. In 2007, Fin ran an ambitious collaborative photography project as part of Scotland’s year-long celebration of Highland culture.  52 people were selected from all over the Highlands & Islands to document a week in their lives by taking a photo every day. The resulting images form a visual diary of a year in the life of the Highlands & Islands in the 21st Century.

Fin explained that the idea for the project began back in 2006 whilst working on a personal project to shoot one Polaroid per day for the entire year, as his homage to the discontinued cult instant film. ThreeSixFive grew from Fin’s fascination with the idea of getting a number of people to document a year, so he developed a proposal to provide cameras to members of the public and let them record events in their lives for one week, without any prescription of what they should shoot. Fin favours a quote from the Czech photographer Josef Koudelka to help sum up the ethos of the project: “For me the most beautiful thing is to wake up, go outside and look without anybody telling me: You have to look this way or another”.

The resulting exhibition featuring the 365 photographs of 2007 taken using one of two Canon digital SLR cameras provided for the project, along with a selection of Fin’s fine monochrome portraits of 32 of the 52 participants, is currently on tour under the banner of ‘ThreeSixFive TrìSiaCòig – A Year in the Highlands and Islands’. On Saturday I managed to catch the first day of its final tour of duty at the Inverness Museum & Art Gallery (IMAG), after an extensive Highland-wide tour that began on the 5th June last year in Nairn.

Stepping into the first-floor gallery space at IMAG you are greeted by an almost empty room, save for a slide projector and two chairs at the far end, where the 365 photos documenting each day of 2007 are projected onto the white wall in a continuous loop.  The remaining walls around the room are hung with Fin’s monochrome portraits of thirty-two of the participants, many in their native work environment, others at play or relaxing, like the horizontal and angular playwright/artist John Byrne, warmly wrapped in a tweed jacket. [PhotoGeekFact: Fin used a Mamiya medium format camera for these commissions].

Fin’s portraits of the participants – a mix of the local and (inter)nationally recognized faces – are sometimes shot against a deliberately blurred background, others instead showing a clear context for the subject. The more playful and less formal portraits such as the horizontal Byrne particularly caught my eye, and I suspect that for these sittings Fin had managed to establish a particularly relaxed atmosphere where the subjects are at ease both with themselves and the photographic process.

We have, for example, an intimate portrait of Myles MacInnes (aka musician/DJ Mylo) sat in (I assume) his local, gently nursing a pint of beer, a copy of Iain Banks’ ‘Raw Spirit’ also present on the table. A neat juxtaposition of the traditional and the local (in both senses), up against the ultra-modern internationally-renowned recording artist. Other stand-outs included a relatively straightforward shot of the laid-back and broadly smiling forester Stuart Blackhall, chainsaw-ready against a stack of blurry pine logs; the professional snowboarder Lesley McKenna, head tilted to almost 90 degrees, resting on her precious board against a pure white background; and the overtly posed, but nevertheless amusing portrait of David Win, the Keeper of Eilean Donan Castle, oversized door key (for an oversized door?) grasped tightly in hand, the Castle vaguely recognizable in the background.

Then there’s the little details of life that make it through the lens, like student Jake Threadgould from Ross-shire, complete with ‘Form for school’ scrawled in biro on the back of his hand, enamelled Vice-captain and Prefect badges pinned loosely to his school tie.  And it’s these depictions of daily life outside work that form the bulk of the 365 photos from the 52 people chosen to participate in the ThreeSixFive exhibition. Despite a large number of Fin’s portraits showing them in their native work environments, the majority of the participants’ snapshots deal with the day-to-day concerns of us all: family, friends, pets, the weather and the landscapes which we hold close, subjects we can all relate to from our own photographic experiences.  An interesting insight into what we value, and of how we define ourselves to others through the photographic medium. We do not, as a rule, take photos at work. The only exception seemed to be where we work within the fantastic Highland landscapes/seascapes.

I would have liked to have spent more time with the 365 photographs, to be able to slow the rolling sets of stills and pause awhile to view their daily snapshots. to share their worldview and gain a little more insight into their lives. Instead I had to content myself with letting 2007 rush by, and attempt to catch and commit a few to memory. The Keeper of Eilean Donan Castle, David Win, has produced a fine set of photographs capturing picture postcard landscapes, milling, inquisitive tourists and dynamic Highland dancers, whilst weaver Catherine Campbell’s week was filled with Harris Tweed, tranquil island landscapes, looms, sheep and somewhat bewildered children draped in oversized tweed clothing.

In essence, the ThreeSixFive/TrìSiaCòig exhibition is a fascinating distillation of a year in the life of the Highlands & Islands and its people, with Fin Macrae’s insightful monochrome formal commissions acting as a counterpoint to the informal & familiar snapshots generously shared with the audience by the 52 participants. If you haven’t already caught this enchanting exhibition during its extensive tour of the Highlands, try and catch it if you can, there’s still time.

Weblinks:

• ThreeSixFive/TrìSiaCòig runs from the 20th February until the 20th March 2010 at the Inverness Museum and Art Gallery
• The accompanying limited edition book “ThreeSixFive – A Year In The Highlands & Islands” is available from Fin Macrae Photography
• Fin Macrae Photography is now a branch of DUFI Art Ltd : http://dufi-art.blogspot.com/

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4. Memories of touring Highlands and Islands cinema sought
5. Highland Council to puts £32k into Islands ‘year’

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